SECRET TREATIES

The culmination of BOC's early career is the perfect counterpart to Tyranny and Mutation. Where its predecessor was aggressive, heavy, and balls-to-the-wall fast, Secret Treaties is complex, mysterious, and elusive. Drawing heavily on Sandy Pearlman's Imaginos mythology - indeed, Astronomy Subhuman would be rerecorded on the Imaginos album (the latter retitled as Blue Oyster Cult). Beginning with the deceptively simple Career of Evil, the album draws the listener on through increasingly bizarre layers of hinted debauchery and occult conspiracy before culminating in the poetic and bizarre Astronomy. An album which has grown on me bit by bit over the years, until now I am convinced that it is the band's masterpiece.